Gwyneth Paltrow Uses Her Oscar as a Doorstop
Gwyneth Paltrow says that she uses her Oscar as a doorstop. The actress turned Goop founder won a Best Actress Academy Award for her performance in 1998's Shakespeare in Love.
In a video for Vogue‘s 73 Questions series, Paltrow's Oscar is seen propping open a door to the actress's garden. “My doorstop,” she says about her coveted little gold statue. “It works perfectly.”
Back in 2005, Paltrow reportedly said that she kept her Oscar statue hidden for a while. “I keep it tucked away at the back of the bookshelf in my bedroom because it weirds me out,” said Paltrow. “For weeks after I won I kept it in storage… I won't even put it on the mantlepiece, the thing freaks me out. For some reason, I haven't been able to feel really good about it. I just feel sort of embarrassed and it brings up weird, traumatic feelings. It's associated with a tough time in my life.”
Gwyneth Paltrow Associates Winning Her Oscar with a Time When Her Father Was Ill
As reported by Entertainment Weekly, Paltrow did a guest appearance on Alex Cooper's Call Her Daddy podcast earlier this year and talked about how her father, Bruce (pictured, above), was seriously ill when she won her Oscar. “He was really debilitated,” said Paltrow about her father, who died in 2002. “It was just this totally overwhelming moment. You know, I was 26. I cried and people were so mean about it and I just thought, Wow, there's this big energy shift that's happening. I think I'm going to have to learn to be less openhearted and much more protective of myself and filter people out better.”
In addition to her Oscar-winning performance in Shakespeare in Love, Paltrow is also known for her roles in Seven, Emma, Sliding Doors, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Royal Tenenbaums, Shallow Hal, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and as Pepper Potts — Iron Man's main squeeze — in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Paltrow and Coldplay singer Chris Martin have two children together and after their daughter, Apple, was born in 2004, Paltrow began to scale back her movie appearances to focus on family. In 2008, Paltrow founded the fringe lifestyle company Goop, the sometimes bizarre products of which many have dismissed as straight-up quackery. The last time Paltrow appeared on-screen was as Pepper Potts in 2019's Avengers: Endgame. She can be heard as herself in the 2022 movie She Said.
Robert DeSalvo is a professional writer and editor with over 25 years of experience at print and online publications such as Movieline, Playboy, PCH, Fandango, and The A.V. Club. He currently lives in Los Angeles, the setting of his favorite movie, Blade Runner. Robert has interviewed dozens of actors, directors, authors, musicians, and other celebrities during his journalism career, including Brian De Palma, Nicolas Cage, Dustin Hoffman, John Waters, Sigourney Weaver, Julianne Moore, Bryan Cranston, Anne Rice, and many more. Horror movies, sci-fi, cult films as well as gothic, postpunk, and synthwave music are what Robert geeks over.
